ness

Yep was back at the Royal tonight and it was even tougher with the dog in the ring after us finding a huge pile of dried liver. No pass tonight but she did ok. Not sure she is 100% and is seriously out of sorts. More proud of her UD performance then her open performance tonight but oh well guess you have nights like that. I do have tonights on video but it might be only for my eyes only. It wasn't a disaster, she stuffed one exercise, the retrieve on the flat, it was just so far from the standard she has been working at lately that I have to wonder if something isn't still the matter. Oh well thats another Royal done and dusted for another year. Maybe one day her little sister can come along and finish off some serious unfinished business.

Since its been a while since I have had any thing really to contribute to this thread (bit the way when your trialling in UD) I thought I would post in a brag anyway. Ness has been out of action for a couple of weeks due to injury and last night was the first night of Obedience at the Adelaide Royal Show. Coupled with the fact she was also attacked by a dog and sustained puncture wounds near her eye only fortnight ago and has been mega stressy since my expectations were pretty low. Its our only indoor trial for the year and pretty tough ask on the dogs with all the distractions. I wasn't to sure how she would get on since our last practice of anything UD was at least a fortnight ago. Any way my brag is she worked very very nicely and only posted one 0 on the score board. Considering our last UD trial she made plenty of mistakes and often posts multiple 0 scores I was absolutely chuffed. I was tickled pink with her scent and gloves and the rest wasn't to bad either. She got through her signals COP bit which has been causing us headaches at trials so that was pleasing considering the distraction level of the crowd being behind the handler and the dog looking straight into the ground.

Hmm Tassie my parents are coming to Tassie in a month or so but your question wasn't addressed to me LOL. Oh and Tassie if I hold midget widget off for the Nationals does this mean she will be running against the little big man in Novice . Just as well they are having separate heights :D . ETA. Good luck to all these trialling in Sydney this weekend .

I wanted to let my girl have one season and was recommended to have her desexed around 3 months after she had finished. Enough time to let the hormones settle down again and just prior to the body thinking about gearing up for coming in again.

Slacker RS - get off your butt and do some stay training NOW :D .

Go Lexi :D . Hmm maybe I should have been flogging somebody elses SFEs considering they moved 2 feet yesterday and they are trialling on Friday and Saturday night . It appears motivation travels through cyberspace so thanks for filling me (and others) in on what was covered. :D

All this talk on stay training and not moving feet and release cues actually motivated me enough tonight to work on the midget some more :D . I was throwing balls everywhere, teasing her with tug toys, tossing tug ropes over the top of her head behind her and she was pretty good on the whole. She moved a few times but only the first time, second time I couldn't get her to budge even move one foot. Was doing all three positions easily and had very nice solid stand stays even with me rolling the ball slowly past her or circling each foot with the ball :D .

:D Rivsky - Ptolomy tells me toller puppies are very different to BC puppies . She tells me tollers have attention spans of a gnat and won't start them on stays until they are older (well going on what she said for Beans ). Will have to see what she does with young Cider. As for release cues - I think Sandi has that effect on lots of dogs. I remember doing stays with her crew - might have been the youngsters Beans and Lexi and Sandi went back and fed her two kids a treat and fed Ness one and well Ness thought that was her release cue . Will admit Sandi had broken her two off from the stay though so it was a bit unfair.

I have been flogging stays recently since Kenzie has decided her version of a stay only needs to last for 15 seconds before she throws herself at me . Go Katie . Great that Lara had a wonderful day :D . Thanks for sharing - sounds like it was fantastic and people learn't plenty.

hmm your scribe might make a presence at the Western Classic or maybe not will have to see what happens.

Where is my report RS . Nobody going to spill the beans about what you might have learned.

- can you elaborate please caffy. Hmm any tips on dogs who switch off at the start peg .

So what did you guys learn today .

Might just have been my reading of the notes . Will have to go back and find the section that caused the confusion. Maybe I was confused with the fading bit. Or maybe it was the videos I got from somebody who sent me through what I needed to teach and there was no target there.

Yeah I have tried using a target plate and that helped but was trying to follow the SG destructions which introduces the target plate later - unless I am really confused .

Ness says your welcome to her - she keeps trying to off-load her but nobody will take her just yet (and besides her mum says its not nice to give your sister away ). Training 2o/2o and was trying to shape it on our contact plank at home. Hmm not very successfully. She will do them if I am at the end of the contact and baby sitting her . Although to be fair I only stuck her on the contact gear last night as they had the low scramble up and they hardly have a low scramble set up at club so I take the opportunity when I can. She sort of has some idea now because if she didn't stop I wouldn't reward and told her to bad so sad and she would go back and put herself on the contact gear and try again. I have read all the SG stuff and still have no luck.

Agility Dog, will pop Kenzie in a postbag and ship her up to you. I am struggling to teach her anything remotely regarding a contact behavior at the moment and its certainly not very independent.

I would tend to agree I don't think there would be any confusion rather its just the fact that leather has its own smell about it - more so then wood and metal. Leather also retains the scent better. When my girl was learning we started on metal, then did wood and attempted leather last. My baby will be starting/has started on woods as she still isn't totally keen on her metal articles. Besides which the only time they are on-lead in the UD ring is when they walk into the ring. Not sure how you use a lead when you train most of UD as its the dog doing stuff independently away from the handler .

I was one of these people who wouldn't enter until the dog was well and truely ready although even then I have usually taken a bit of prodding to enter :D . Having said that I entered her first UD trial when I knew she wasn't anywhere near close and we came very very close to a pass . Only been pearshaped since then.

Have to say I get most of mine from the supermarket to LP. The butchers around here are super pricey and I tend to look for whats on special. If you pick your days you can find stuff thats marked down at foodland/woolies. I have got some pretty good bargains - even managed to get quail for $1.50 each for something different (although neither of them were too keen).

I have run one tunnellers course on a fun day here and ended up flat on my backside . Its certainly a very fast moving event not helped by slightly slippery grounds.

love thread hijacking. Ness tolerates dogs - hmm she actually doesn't tell them where to go which is why Kenzie still tries her on for a game 16 months down the track . Its pretty hilarious to watch Kenzie throw her enduroball at Ness - its soccer ball size so she nose butts it into Ness (wherever Ness happens to be laying chewing on bones in the yard ) and then sits there and barks at her or until I rescue the ball. I did think of moving to Perth and then it occurred to me I might not be welcome cos I ask too many questions and send to many emails .

Er yep Ness is motivated by nothing other than her stomach - Ptolomy can vouch for that after having let us train with her for a couple of weeks . Oh wait the other thing Ness is motivated by is missing out on her turn . Just said to Ptolomy, if Kenzie is every lacking in drive which is hardly ever then all one has to do is mention enduroball and she goes berserk - thats her version of a jackpot . Have to say I am yet to encounter any serious desire to sniff from miss K when she is working. Even when we went to a new training place yesterday to do some agility the moment we were doing stuff she didn't care about sniffing the ground. Obviously there was good stuff there though as once I had disengaged her from the task she was quite taken in the smells . As for moving to Perth - grrrrrrr you guys are hopeless. I have Ptolomy telling me I really need to come to the Nationals as deep down I really want to and well you aren't helping ;) . Hmm anybody know of any law jobs in WA at the moment .

I am really bad for cheap rewarding. Still yet to find something that Ness finds rewarding enough to use in the ring. Hand touches don't seem to work for us. They do work to a varying degree for Kenzie but just working is rewarding for her.

Have a brilliant idea RS you can pay for my airfares and I will come act as your scribe for the day .